Instance Type - Overview

Based on Ribbon's internal tests, you can deploy the SBC on the following Azure instance types:

SBC - Azure Instance Compatibility

Instance Type

Instance Type

Code

No. of

vCPUs

RAM

(GB)

Temp.

Storage

(SSD)

(GiB)

Max. no.

of NICs

Bandwidth

(MBPS)

vCPU Type

Secondary Interface

(if Accelerated Networking

is enabled)

Standard DS3 v2Standard_DS3_v24142843000

Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8272CL (Cascade Lake)
Intel® Xeon® 8171M 2.1GHz (Skylake)
Intel® Xeon® E5-2673 v4 2.3 GHz (Broadwell)
Intel® Xeon® E5-2673 v3 2.4 GHz (Haswell)

ConnectX-3 / ConnectX-4
Standard D8s v3Standard_D8s_v38326444000Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8272CL (Cascade Lake)
Intel® Xeon® 8171M 2.1GHz (Skylake)
Intel® Xeon® E5-2673 v4 2.3 GHz (Broadwell)
Intel® Xeon® E5-2673 v3 2.4 GHz (Haswell)
ConnectX-3 / ConnectX-4
Standard D16s v3Standard_D16s_v3166412888000Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8272CL (Cascade Lake)
Intel® Xeon® 8171M 2.1GHz (Skylake)
Intel® Xeon® E5-2673 v4 2.3 GHz (Broadwell)
Intel® Xeon® E5-2673 v3 2.4 GHz (Haswell)
ConnectX-3 / ConnectX-4


Tip

You can assign any of CPUs mentioned in the column vCPU Type, and any of the secondary interfaces to an instance.

When you execute the Azure CLI command az vm create, use the values provided in the column Instance Type Code for the parameter size.

Note

The High-Availability Font End (HFE) nodes use the same instance types as the SBCs.

Note

If you enable Accelerated Networking, refer to the topic "Accelerated Networking in Azure - Platform Limitations" on the page Feature Availability by Platform.

References:


Exposed Interfaces with Accelerated Networking

Each interface with accelerated networking enabled has additional interfaces in the instance, as specified in the below table.

These additional interfaces comes from one NIC and share the same MAC address.

Exposed Interfaces with Accelerated Networking

Created Interface

Exposed Interface WITH

Accelerated Networking Enabled

Exposed Interface WITHOUT

Accelerated Networking Enabled

mgt0mgt0, mlxhvmgt0, mlxmgt0, dtap<n>*mgt0
ha0ha0, mlxha0, dtap<n>*ha0
pkt0pkt0, mlxhvpkt0, mlxpkt0, dtap<n>*pkt0
pkt1pkt1, mlxhvpkt1, mlxpkt1, dtap<n>pkt1

* dtap<n> – The variable <n> represents a value from 0-3


Note

Interfaces are named  as mgt0, ha0, pkt0, pkt1 and mgt1 in the order they are added to the instance.

Even though there are multiple interfaces exposed in the instance, you use mgt0, ha0, pkt0, and pkt1 interfaces only.


Note

When you enable Accelerated Networking on an interface, the instance gets netVSC as the primary interface, and Mellanox VF (ConnectX-3 or ConnectX-4) as the secondary interface.

VM Disk Performance Issues

If you are using using disk intensive activities such as running a level 4 call trace to collect all SIP PDUs to share with the Ribbon Analytics platform, Ribbon recommends to select an SSD disk type for the SBC VM as described below. Regular hard disks are to slow and can result in performance issues on the SBC SWe.

When using the CLI to create a VM, set the following attribute:

(You can set the extra parameter when creating the VM. When not specified, the default value is "Premium_LRS", which uses the Premium SSD.)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/vm?view=azure-cli-latest#az-vm-create

--storage-sku

The SKU of the storage account with which to persist VM. Use a singular sku that would be applied across all disks, or specify individual disks. Usage: [--storage-sku SKU | --storage-sku ID=SKU ID=SKU ID=SKU...], where each ID is "os" or a 0-indexed lun. Allowed values: Standard_LRS, Premium_LRS, StandardSSD_LRS, UltraSSD_LRS, Premium_ZRS, StandardSSD_ZRS, PremiumV2_LRS.

az vm create --name <INSTANCE NAME>

             --resource-group <RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME>

             --admin-username linuxadmin

             --custom-data <USER DATA JSON FILE>

             --image "<IMAGE NAME>"

             --location "<LOCATION>"

             --os-disk-size-gb <DISK SIZE IN GB>

             --size <INSTANCE SIZE>


When using IAC scripts, update the following attribute to use an SSD.

managed_disk_type - "Standard_LRS"